LA County Bike Plan

In April 2011, LACBC launched a campaign to demand a stronger bicycle master plan for the unincorporated communities in LA County.  LACBC is pressuring the County to increase the mileage of bike lanes, bicycle boulevards, and routes with sharrows included in the draft 2011 County Bike Plan. We want the County to prioritize safety through better engineering, creating accountability, and prioritizing infrastructure investments in urban unincorporated areas that have disproportionately high rates of collisions. Read more about our position here on our blog.

The County Bicycle Plan is intended to provide better bicycle connectivity within the unincorporated communities and to the communities that surround them to create a “seamless regional bicycle network” that will “improve the existing and future quality of life throughout the region.” While the Draft Plan proposes a number of improvements to the bicycle infrastructure in the County’s unincorporated areas, we feel the Plan needs improvement in order to meet the vision stated in the Plan. As cited in the Plan, East LA bore the brunt of car-bicycle collisions at a whopping 43% of all collisions in the past five years, due to a combination of high ridership, no bicycle infrastructure, and a multitude of freeway on and off ramps with heavy truck traffic. Given this, it is shocking that Whitter Blvd, which was singled out for having the highest rate of collisions does not include any proposed bicycle infrastructure in the current draft and it is a proposed bike lane project in the City of LA. The County needs to provide more miles of bike lanes, bicycle boulevards, and standard treatments like sharrows and ensure connections to proposed bikeways in neighboring jurisdictions are made.  Additionally, the policies and programs within the Draft Plan lack substance, commitment to implementation, and transparency. 

LACBC is pressuring DPW to provide clear metrics on how they are improving safety through the implementation of the bicycle plan (working towards zero deaths) by providing collision data comparisons, updates on project status and implementation, detailed summaries of what programs and policies they have begun, and how many people they have reached through education campaigns. This is key to provide more transparency, evaluate progress, and identify where improvements are needed. 

We need your help to make the Plan better. Read through the Plan and take a look at the maps, submit comments to the County and contact your County Supervisor to let them know this Plan needs to be better!